BIRD WATCHING:
This series was for the Birds. The Birds of Baltimore despite being 40 games under .500 were able to win 2 of the 4 game series. As for the Yankees, the big story was that Greg Bird showed some signs of breaking out of his season long slump after missing the majority of the first two months of the season due to ankle surgery.
DOUBLE DIP:
The old baseball adage says it is hard to win a double-header, and the Yankees proved it. They seemed to be on their way to a Game 1 win with a 4-2 lead in the 6th inning, but CC Sabathia ran out of gas and allowed a 3R HR to Danny Valencia in the 6th inning, as the O’s went on to 5-4 victory “improving” their season’s record to 25-65. The Yanks got the split with a Game 2, 10-2 blowout win. Luis Cessa (1-1) gave up only 3 hits, throwing 6 strong shutout innings. Brett Gardner had 4 hits, homered , drove in 3, and added spectacular defensive play in CF.
MACHO MAN :
Manny Machado hit 2 home runs to down the Yankees in Game 3. Machado continued his dominance over the Yankees becoming the 2nd player in MLB history with at least 4 multi homer run games vs. the Yankees before the age of 27. The other player..Jimmy Foxx(6). Masahiro Tanaka, in his first start since coming off the DL went 4.1 innings and allowed 3 runs.. Greg Bird homered and drove in 4 runs, but he also let a hard hit ground ball go off his glove for the winning “hit” by Schoop in the 9th inning. The final score was 6-5 and the loss lowered the Yanks record vs. the lowly O’s on the season to 4-5 (the Red Sox by contrast are 9-1 vs. the Birds).
SON’ OF A GUN:
After 2 horrendous starts in a row, Sonny Gray (6-7) bounced back with a very solid performance, posting 6 shutout innings for the win, allowing 3 hits, with 1BB / 8K. Greg Bird hit his 1st career Grand Slam to RF (off the fowl pole:) continuing to show positive signs as he now has a 5 game hitting streak with 8 RBIs over the past 2 games. Tyler Wade hit his first career HR, Romine also went deep and Giancarlo Stanton added 4 hits as the Yankees cruised to a 9-0 victory to earn a split of the 4 game series at Camden Yards.
